AJ: Tell us what you wanted to express with your layout work.
I just wanted to transmit the same peaceful and relaxing atmosphere that Mr. Grygoriy Polishchuk tramsited with his painting “BIOTOPE AMANO”.
I found this picture full of expression of a nature view with a nice structure and depth to be done in an aquarium. At that point I didn’t know that this picture was the garden created by Mr. Takashi Amano in Niigita. Once I knew it, I was very proud to represent a nature space done by him. I thought it was a good way to make a tribute and a recognition to him.

 

AJ: What was the most difficult aspect of creating and maintaining this layout work?
The most difficult aspect was to simulate the pond. For that, I was inspired with the IAPLC2016 Silver Prize ‘Over Time’ by Mr. Katsuki Tanaka. He used a mirror to reflect the light, and I thought it was a very smart idea for doing it. I tested with some mirrors in a small aquarium and the result was quite satisfactory, so I went ahead.
Another difficulty was to develop Ceratopteris pteridoides enough to simulate the braches and leaves of the trees without avoiding the light illuminate for the plants just down it. As much the plant grew, the less light arrived to the plants located just down.

 

 

AJ: Tell us what you wanted to express with your layout work.
This year’s theme is “Return to nature”. A television series titled “Life After People” inspired me to come up with this theme. The problem talks about what will happen to the world after every human disappear suddenly. In this series, after the sudden removal of humans, civilization had changed to ruins, covered by plants and then the earth returned to nature. The hardscape in this layout is based on a representative architecture of ancient civilization of Europe and photos of Angkor Wat showing massive roots tangle in old architectures gave me some ideas to create this layout. I made layouts in which driftwood was the main material for the last 3 years so I wanted to challenge new materials this year and used rare black-colored volcanic rocks as the main material. I hope you feel the originality too. Personally I like the natural landscapes where the ficus microcarpa aerial roots are almost touching the ground and I rendered nature’s vitality by reconstructing this landscape in my layout.